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Ash'talan
Appearance She is six feet tall, with wide hips and broad shoulders. She's lightly muscled, and it shows under her skin. She's all subtle curves. Her spine is straight when she sits, with her back pressed up against the chair. Her gait is not exactly graceful, and her footsteps tend to fall heavily on the floor, but her hips swing subtly when she walks. Her skin is a muted, bronze hue. She does not have any visible scars, and knows how to take care of her complexion. Her hair is pale as polished, gleaming silver, and soft to the touch. She combs it carefully every night, and grows it out long to her lower back. She usually keeps her hair in two elaborate braids. Her eyes are deep red, like garnets. She has no tattoos, only piercings: three in each ear, two in her left eyebrow, and one ringed through her right. Those are the only ones that you know about, anyway. She's developed a taste for fine, imported clothing, made of expensive materials, and coupled with bits of jewelry, although she much prefers something simple and gold rather than dripping with gems. She likes clothes that show off her best features, hiding the broadness of her shoulders and thickness of her arms but display her long, tan legs and emphasize the swell of her breasts and hips. She prefers vibrant, warm colors, especially red and its many beautiful shades. Cool colors, she's found, do not complement her eyes. For footwear, she prefers something aesthetically pleasing as well as sturdy, such as boots, if not finely crafted boots. She likes wearing clothes which cling to her figure, whether it is flowing dress robes or light, studded leather. She tries to look good no matter what she's doing. When expecting a fight, however, she dons her prized enchanted amulets and rings and cloaks, and wears pants under her robes. When she entertains customers, she wears a lot less - often starting off with a bedlah and skirt and ending up with nothing at all. In her free time, she might just wear a simple dress and little else besides her piercings. Personality Unreliable, opportunistic, free-spirited, dishonest, blunt, adaptable, cynical, superficial, inconsistent, cunning, inquisitive. Biography As is qunari custom, the young kossith did not know of her parents. It was suggested she was bred to be a priest, although that did not guarantee her role was fixed to that position. That last shred of uncertainty was what she clung to in a childhood of discipline, with her whole life and purpose planned out before she was conceived. The young girl was intelligent, resourceful, and a hard-worker in all things she did – to the Tamassrans who watched her progress, she was everything they thought she would be. She had no desire to be a priest, however, and had grown fascinated with the soldiers that guarded the city. Many afternoons, sitting in a warm pool of sun after a long day at her studies, she would abandon her prayers to watch the soldiers pass by her window. She imagined herself, one day, as a warrior, with her chest painted red and a sword strapped to her back. The Tamassran she was placed in the care of made sure to discourage these childhood fantasies. She began gently, forcing the child to pray longer and to perform more chores than the other children. It did not deter her daydreams, however, and she kept her desires a secret. The child once traced crude designs down her front in scarlet ink she had stolen from the school's supplies, and fashioned a greatsword out of a plank of wood to fight imaginary enemies. Though she thought she was careful in her secret sparring sessions, Tamassran was not fooled, and the child was severely punished for her behavior. In the years that passed, she grew more and more resentful of the rigidities of her society. She questioned the Tamassrans' teachings, and the wisdom of the Qun. Yet she attempted to cooperate, going along with her lessons and striving to meet the expectations of her teachers, but her heart was not in her effort and her meditations were spent with her head in the clouds rather than in prayer. The day finally arrived that her role would be chosen. She knew her childish whims had no place in the Tamassran's plans for her, but she hoped, perhaps, that she might be destined for something that none of them had thought of when she was born. Perhaps. But no, she soon learned what they had chosen for her, and her fate was sealed. She did not react in blind rage, but she wasn't so cold as to prevent it from effecting her, and it ate at her until it escaped in a blaze of fire. One moment, she was in meditation with the other fledglings in Tamassran training, and then the next, there was a sweet release, a stinging on her skin. The soldiers in the room were not quick enough to act, caught off guard by such a child, destined for priesthood, lashing out at the world with flames. In the confusion and death, she made her escape, the smell of burning flesh clinging to her robes, her face blackened with soot except for the glowing, white grin on her face. No one was going to call her Saarebas. She was clever enough to escape a collared life of ultimate obedience, but she did not understand the world beyond Seheron's borders. These outsiders were strange, chaotic and barbaric, hornless as the Ben-Hassrath, but scrawny and in varying shades of dull hues. She had not grown into her horns or her full height, and so many saw only her pointed ears – the qunari were giant, horned men, not lost little girls. She barely lasted a night on her own before she was taken by slavers and sold to a rather well-off merchant. He had a long, black ponytail, and his ears and teeth gleamed with gold. He examined her while she was kept in shackles. All attempts to call back that fire, that raw rage, failed her, but she kicked and screamed and spat in his face. He merely laughed at her. He knew what she was, and so he laughed and laughed right out of the slaver's den, happy that he'd gotten a bargain. He had set out for an elven lass, and found himself instead a young, qunari girl. The merchant traveled with a mage – an apostate, although she didn't know the word yet. In the year or two of slavery, she kept a close watch on the mage, curious at how freely the Bas saarebas lived. She learned how to unshackle herself at night, once the guards were asleep, though they remained at sea and so there wasn't yet an opportunity to escape. She would occasionaly sneak into the mage's quarters and thumb through his tomes while he slept. She stole what she could when they landed in Rivain, hopping onto a ship to Antiva, at the same port, before they realized she was gone. Her journey ended in Rialto, where she found work and shelter in a brothel. Though her mage abilities were not a secret among the other whores, she was valuable for her age and race. She eventually found her niche among the other apostates who sought sanctuary within the whorehouse. With them, she learned what she could of magic, though she was most skilled with elemental and primal spells. Blood magic was not unknown to the other apostates she encountered in Rialto. She knew of the forbidden school of magic only because of its infamy, and decided that there was only so much negativity surrounding it because the Chantry, like the Qun, did not want mages to reach their full potential. Blood mages didn't seem that much different than saarebas, in her eyes. If anything, she wanted that legendary power herself. It wasn't long before a demon of desire sensed what it was she wanted, and visited her in her dreams. In exchange for knowledge of forbidden magic, Ash'talan promised to fulfill the malicious spirit's request, to be decided at a later time. Even the danger of demons was something she questioned - just another mystery that mortal men misinterpreted in their infantile ignorance. As the years passed, remaining safe as an apostate in Rialto was proving to be more difficult than she'd hoped. Her attempts to quell rumors that the qunari whore of the Red Jewel dabbled in magic resulted in Ash'talan wading knee-deep through organized crime and corrupt politics. It was the natural "order" of Rialto, finally trying to swallow her up. And it would have succeeded if she didn't make herself scarce, getting as far away from Antiva as possible. Perhaps, she would be safe in Kirkwall - perhaps, she could hide among the refugees. For all the templars in Kirkwall, perhaps, they'd think this is the last place she'd want to be. Timeline Relationships Category:Character Index Category:Original Characters Category:Apostates Category:Seherans